Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to electric submersible pumps (ESPs), and more particularly to methods of selecting and sizing an electric submersible pump.
Subterranean areas of interest are typically accessed through a borehole. The borehole is surrounded by subterranean material such as sand that may migrate out of the borehole along with oil, gas, water, and/or other fluid generated from a well. An outermost casing is inserted in the borehole and held in place using cement in the space between an outer surface of the casing and surrounding earth. The fluid produced from the well flows to the surface through a production tubing. A variety of fluid lifting systems are in use to pump the fluid from the wellbore to earth's surface. For example, an electric submersible pump (ESP) can be disposed in the wellbore for extracting the fluid to boost subsea production.
Conventionally, a pump used in ESP applications is selected and sized manually as a user goes through several attempts to find a suitable pump for an application via a trial-and-error method. Moreover, the user has to account for many factors, including process limitations and equipment operating limitations (e.g., working inside the recommended flow rate operation range, brake horse power (BHP) limits, etc.). The user also has to account for a final objective or goal, such as maximizing oil production. Unfortunately, selecting and sizing the pump via trial-and-error can be time consuming, and the success of the trial-and-error method depends in part on the experience of the user.